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Category Archives: Inspiration

If you tortured that metaphor any more, you’d be before a tribunal in the Hague.

– Niles Crane, Frasier, “The Babysitter”

Since I posted a (serious) quote last week I thought it would be fun to post another quote while I wrap up my final paper this weekend. It’s apt, it’s something I need to keep in mind while I’m writing, and it’s hilars.

It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.

I will be working on a long final paper for the next week at least, so I leave you with the quote that I am using as its inspiration. You can read the whole Audre Lorde piece online, which you should because it’s great. Now I’m going to go write about feminist transgression in eighteenth century fiction, whoop!

I had to post this Incidental Comic on “The Nature of Ambition” (which you should absolutely be reading because they are great) because this is very much how my life is now in more than one way. To lose control of things that define you, for them to leave you which challenges your identity, and finally to have them return and humble you – its quite an experience. I think the comic articulates it better then I ever could though!

For this week’s inspiration post I thought I would feature a few of the recently released photos from Illamasqua Human Fundamentalism Collection for Spring 2012. What I love about Illamasqua, aside from the fact that they make stunning nail polish of course, is their campaigns. They take makeup, something that can be critiqued as a way blend in, not offend, stay young, and tow the party line of how women are supposed to look – a real vehicle for conformity – and completely explode it. Not only do they make shocking and bizarre makeup colors (and I do want the metallic eyeshadow in the collection), but their ad campaigns are so overloaded on the products as to make it almost assaultive; even bordering on grotesque.

The whole campaign (of which these are just a few photos, there is also a video worth viewing) takes the dominant paradigm of femininity and beauty as perpetuated by the makeup industry and flips it violently on its head. The techno Burning Man cyber tribal aesthetic isn’t one that appeals to me personally, but I still find this campaign inspiring for how boundary pushing it is. Illamasqua generally releases beauty campaigns that come close to making me uncomfortable, they’re so challenging aesthetically, but they do it in a way that is so smart that I have nothing but complete respect for them. Not to mention that they manage to keep it fun, but never cross the line into mockery (I’m looking at you Italian Vogue).

All of these photos can be viewed larger by clicking on them, many more are on their Facebook including ones featuring men and an older woman, I chose these four photos because they were 1) my favorites and 2) the most overwhelming.

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I’m Brigitte and this is the story of my mild ride. I’ve blogged all sorts of things through the years, and the site reflects it! Adventures in handmade, business ownership, papercraft, literary analysis, and toy blogging all show up here. Hey, I’m just eclectic.